mallet

American  

[mal-it] / ˈmæl ɪt /

noun

• mallets
  plural

1. a hammerlike tool with a head commonly of wood but occasionally of rawhide, plastic, etc., used for driving any tool with a wooden handle, as a chisel, or for striking a surface.

2. the wooden implement used to strike the balls in croquet.

3. Polo. the long-handled stick, or club, used to drive the ball.

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mallet British  

/ ˈmælɪt /

noun

1. a tool resembling a hammer but having a large head of wood, copper, lead, leather, etc, used for driving chisels, beating sheet metal, etc

2. a long stick with a head like a hammer used to strike the ball in croquet or polo

3. a very large powerful steam locomotive with a conventional boiler but with two separate articulated engine units

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• mallets
  plural

Etymology

Origin of mallet

1375–1425; late Middle English maillet < Middle French, equivalent to mail maul + -et -et

Explanation

A mallet is a tool with a large, barrel-shaped, head — used to pound on something. You might use a mallet to strike an instrument or in playing croquet. Yeah, right. A mallet is a long-handled implement with a barrel-shaped head used in games like croquet or polo. In music, a mallet is a stick with a rounded end that is sometimes padded, used to strike percussion instruments like timpani, bells, or a marimba. Use your yarn or rubber mallets to play the marimba, and use your wooden mallets to play the xylophone.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

mallet mallets

Alternatively, use a meat mallet to flatten and add a pattern to the cookies.

From Salon ● Dec. 13, 2025

Danger feels suspended in the soft-blue light, in which the lion’s tail and the round, silvery moon, balanced just-so, are poised like a raised mallet and gong.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 15, 2025

"It's so hard to do, number one. Number two, my back and my neck from swinging that hammer around, or mallet, I think it's called, if you're in the know, it's polo language."

From BBC ● Oct. 17, 2024

However, during the FBI tests in 2022 at the agency’s lab in Quantico, Va., forensic analysts used a rawhide mallet to strike the gun so hard that components of the gun fractured.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 24, 2024

Between them, the contents of the broken treasure chest lay exposed in the sand: The mallet and brass disc had gone green with age, half-corroded by time and salt water, but the gong was unmistakable.

From "The Reader" by Traci Chee

SINGAPORE—The crowd gasped as the brokers swung the wooden mallets on the lid of the sake barrel, cracking it open in celebration.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 17, 2026

In the port of La Guaira, one of the hardest-hit cities, the BBC saw people using crowbars, mallets and pickaxes to try to dig out loved ones and neighbours.

From BBC ● Jun. 29, 2026

At St. Anne School in Santa Monica, I watched Cummins harness the squirmy energy of second-graders wielding xylophone mallets.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 21, 2026

They distributed xylophone mallets to those waiting in line.

From New York Times ● Feb. 2, 2024

She found herself standing, and on legs that felt weirdly like rubber mallets, transporting herself up the other aisle and out the doors.

From "When Dimple Met Rishi" by Sandhya Menon

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